Planebreaker
by AdrienneRhiannon
Summary: This story is being moved to Archive of our own, and all updates will be posted there, and not here. The link is: /works/4863314/chapters/11145815
1. The planebreaker

"I don't wanna say this, but..." Sandra trailed off, twirling a lock of bright red hair between her fingers. She always got nervous when Ace was on edge, and the dark blonde hunter was definitely on edge right now.

"But what?" The tone with which the hunter spoke was ice cold, and most certainly ill-bodingly calm. She drew the whetstone over the blade of her dagger with long, slow strokes and did not even look up at her hunting partner. Sandra bit her lower lip, looking down at the books that were splayed out on the table before her.

"Well, I think it's a planebreaker." Sandra said, and as she had foreseen the reaction was immediate. Ace looked up, the whetstone halting as she looked up at her friend with piercing blue eyes. "That is not possible. They're just superstition." Her voice was hard, and her gaze harsh as she held Sandra's gaze effortlessly. From the corner there was a gruff chuckle, and both women turned their heads to look at the source of it. Warwick had been a late addition to their hunting party, and Ace had not been pleased with him joining in. However, the raven-haired Okie had proven more gritty, touch and quick than either hunters cared to admit.

"Just superstition. Says the girl who talks to angels." His black eyes caught Ace's and she responded to his look with a frown. She still didn't like him, and she often told herself that she never would. "Yeah, so? Angels I can see, hear and touch. Plus, they burn out demons at convenient times. Planebreakers I've only heard of from humans that honestly thought they could control demons."

"And they couldn't?" Warwick knew the answer, he was just being a bloody tease.

"Of course not! They're humans; they can't control bloody supernatural creatures." The whetstone resumes its slow rhythm over the already sharpened steel, and Ace's eyes returned to her work. "'Sides, we haven't seen any physical signs of this thing since we came. Could just be a trickster."

"If you say so." Warwick had that slightly amused tone that he knew all too well would make Ace react. The woman was tough, yes, but she was easily annoyed, and sometimes that was necessary to make her react to something, and follow the leads she needed to.

"Bloody hell, fine! We'll go search the goddamn warehouse if you want it so bad. We'll check it out tonight. After dark." Ace did not even need to look up to see the look they shared. She hated the way Sandra had begun to turn to Warwick instead of her. Back in the good old days before he joined in, they had handled things on their own, not like this. Not with pushing the right buttons and manipulating reactions. She did not like it.

As soon as evening fell, they left the small motel room, weapons ready and flashlights in hand. Ace led the party, but mainly because she didn't want to walk next to Warwick. Sandra fancied that much more than she did, and why deny her the pleasure. So long as they kept it to themselves and found another room if it went too far. Not that it had. Yet.

The warehouse was hellishly creepy, even Ace felt an involuntary shiver go down her spine. God freaking damn it she hated places like this, they just reeked hauntings and supernatural stuff. And places that reeked with it tended to be infested with it too. After years of hunting, all three knew that.

The door creaked when Ace pushed it open with an elbow, ignoring the shelling paint and rotting wood. At least the floor was concrete, so they wouldn't fall through. Ace tested it with a stomp anyhow, just to be sure, and the sound seemed too loud in her ears, echoing through the dark space. It had definitely been an industrial building back in its day, there was one main space, a huge room with space enough to build at least five sailing ships at the same time. Now the remains of one was crumbled in corner, the white paint shelling with a sickly yellowish color. And that wasn't even the creepiest part.

"Let's get this over with." Ace mumbled, shivering involuntarily as she began to search through the vast room, Warwick and Sandra following right after her.

Hours passed by with naught but a dozen rats and some fat pigeons who fled at the mere presence of light. Ace was beginning to think this was a waste of their time, even Sandra was doubting Warwick's hunch. There had not been much connecting the deaths to the warehouse, but the man had brought several cases to closure with the help of his hunch, so even Ace had assumed it would be the same this time.

Suddenly, she heard Sandra gasp behind her, and turned around with her gun and torch held up, ready to aim and fire with as much as a split second's warning. She was shocked at what she saw. Warwick was holding a knife to Sandra's throat, her arms held behind her by his vacant hand in a tight grip. Something lit up his eyes, something the like of which Ace had never seen before. It was not fire, it was great, vast, cold emptiness. He grinned maniacally at her expression, even as she pointed the gun at him.

"That won't do you much good." He said, his tone condescending as though she was nothing but a child.

"Putting a bullet through your thick skull will do me all the good in the world." She answered coldly, and pulled the trigger. She knew she better shoot now than later, but although the bullet hit its mark, going straight through his head, he still stood. And he was still grinning broadly as blood ran down his face. Ace gasped and lowered the gun, realising that it was in vain. If that did not kill the son of a bitch, nothing she could do at the moment would do the trick.

"What do you want, Warwick?" She asked, keeping her eye on the knife that he was pressing to the rapidly paling Sandra's neck. He was not drawing blood. Yet.

"My name is Aion. And I just thought I'd put my existence out there." His grin was unsettling. In fact, everything about him was unsettling at the moment. His skin was white as snow, practically lighting up in the darkness of the night. Then she realised the full implications of what he meant.

"You're a planebreaker." She managed not to sound like she was panicking, but she was. Oh hell yes.

"Clever girl, yes I am."

"And you're going to send me to another plane while she's watching, so she can tell others?" Ace could have sworn she saw him raise an eyebrow at her words this time.

"Well, well. You're a lot sharper than you seem. This will be fun to watch." With that, he let Sandra go, but just as she was about to run to Ace, Aion raised both hands, as though he was pulling something towards the sky. Ace felt the ground beneath her disappear, and suddenly, there was only endless, vast, cold emptiness. She could not breathe, her heartbeat echoing as though it was the loudest sound in the world. Then she passed out, not registering that she landed on a white, cold floor. She only weakly felt that she was scooped up into the arms of someone. Someone warm and… Furry.

And very blue.


	2. The Beast and the Professor

"I swear, Charles, she fell out of thin air!" Doctor Hank McCoy held up his hands, seemingly at a loss for answers. Besides him was Professor Charles Xavier, in his wheelchair, his calm gaze fixed upon the woman who was now asleep on a clean, white bed. He hesitated a moment, probing her mind with his own in an attempt to read it, but his attempts failed. That was perhaps even more unusual than her sudden appearance.

"Oh I believe you, Hank. I believe you." He said, tilting his head slightly to look at the woman. Her face was serenely calm at that moment, but the lines around her eyes and the evident strength in her arm and facial muscles spoke their own language. This was a woman who had seen too much of the world already. How old did she look to be? Thirty, at most. Hank looked at the professor with a somewhat uncertain glance. The blue-furred man had seen a lot in his time, but people appearing out of thin air, now that was a first. In the middle of his laboratory on top of everything. "So who is she?" He asked. Charles sighed deeply, rubbing his temples.

"I wish I knew."

"You mean you can't read her?" Now that was even more unusual. Charles Xavier was the most powerful telepath the world knew. There were only one man he could not read, and that was because he had invented a way to protect himself from telepathic brainwaves.

"Correct, Hank. I cannot read her mind." Charles offered his friend the slightest smile, thus reassuring him. Only when Hank smiled back, albeit hesitantly, did he continue. "We shall simply have to ask her when she comes to." He kept his voice calm, slightly aloof, even. He was of course concerned, naturally. Whatever this girl had done, it was serious. If she had teleported, she had done so without him having sensed it, so it seemed unlikely. She had to have come from somewhere, but the little he could see of her mind seemed strangely… Off. Not in an unhealthy or bad way, it simply did not work on the same frequencies as the minds he had encountered before.

"Shouldn't be too long." The blue-furred man lowered his glasses slightly, looking at the woman over the silver rims. "She's perfectly healthy, it seems to be nothing but a slight shock."

He was right. Only a few heartbeats later, she slowly opened her eyes. Her reaction was not entirely what they'd expected. She looked at Charles first, letting out the slightest groggy groan. But then her gaze fell on Hanks, and her eyes widened. She practically jumped up, standing on the bed, back pressed against the white wall in an attempt to get as far away as she possibly could.

"Holy shit what is that? He? It?" Her thoughts seemed to whirr around in her head for a moment. "Not a sasquatch, too human. Too hairy to be a wendigo. And why is it blue…" She seemed genuinely confused for a moment, letting her sharp gaze run over Hank, inspecting him from top to bottom. He raised a bushy eyebrow at her, crossing his arms with a huff. A sasquatch! Hah! He was certainly nothing of the short. Even Charles almost chuckled, he couldn't help but find it amusing.

"My name is Doctor Hank McCoy, and I am a mutant. You've heard of those, surely?" Judging by the way she looked at him, he guessed that she probably had not. Well, that was rather surprising. He frowned as he caught her eyes, there was something unusual about this woman. Very unusual. Not only the fact that she had reacted as someone who was used to having to draw a weapon or fight with just a moment's notice, but also the wisdom in her eyes. She looked as though she was wise well beyond her years. Her mind softened when she realised that he was, indeed, human and sentient. She sat down in the bed with a heavy thump.

"I... My name's Ace Hardstone. I'm a hunter. And I have never heard of mutants like you, they uh… God this is weird to say." She took a moment to grimace, what she was about to tell them was something she had never thought she would say, and would never have believed if she had heard it from anyone. "Well, they probably don't exist in my world." There, the bomb had been dropped. She was almost surprised by their reaction, mainly the lack of shock or disbelief. She looked from one to the other, trying desperately to read their faces. She hated this uncertainty, she hated not being sure of what she could trust and what she should distrust. Her instincts might be totally useless in this world, who knew?

"Your world?" Hank asked first, prompted by Charles' silent thinking. Ace's gaze immediately shot upwards to meet his. She tilted her head slightly as though she was trying to decide whether she trusted him for now, or not. "Yes. My world. It is filled with supernatural creatures, some of which are dangerous to humanity, so people like me hunt them down. I had a run-in with a planebreaker; he must have sent me here." The truth was obviously the only way to go with this conversation, so she chose it. The straight path for once. He seemed trustworthy, the blue guy. As for the bald one in the wheelchair, well, he thought a bit much in her opinion.

"A planebreaker… An interesting theory. Yes, it could work when the theorem of parallel universe sis applied. Still, it seems highly paradoxical." The beast – no, she corrected herself, Hank – seemed to be considering her information very carefully, and scientifically. She frowned at him, leaning her head forward slightly in an expression that clearly showed that she had no idea what he was talking about. Science talk wasn't exactly her strong side. "Yeah, that's all very good, blue guy – I mean uh, Doctor McCoy – but where does it leave me?" She meant literally, where was she. But she tried to use big words, it seemed appropriate to at least try.

"My mansion, the Headquarters of the X-men. Northernmost New York." The bald guy spoke at last, and the gentle smile he sent her made her feel slightly better about him, maybe baldy wasn't so bad after all. He still thought too much, though. "My name is Professor Charles Xavier."

"Wow, Professor and Doctor. I never got to meet many of your kind in my world." Ace looked from one man to the other, and then back again. She wasn't sure what to say or do. This was their place, and even more importantly, their world, so it seemed safest to let them stay in control. She didn't know how much different it was from her world, but the changes did not seem insignificant. "So… What now? You gonna run a bunch of crazy tests on me and use me as a bridge between dimensions? No, scratch that, I don't even want to think about it."

At that, Hank chuckled and smiled, that was the first smile she had seen on his lips, and it made her strangely pleased with herself. He did not seem to be a very easy man to amuse. "I can assure you that I will do no such things. A minor blood test perhaps, but nothing more than that-"

"Wait, blood test? Needles? Hell no." In a split second Ace was once more completely alert, her muscles tightening and readying to flee or fight, although it would probably not be necessary. Hopefully, but you never know. Hank was about to say something, but Charles spoke first, with a gleam in his eyes. "Well, I'll leave you to it." He said, slowly steering his wheelchair back, and out of the room. Hank stood for a moment, wondering what that amused look on his old friend's face had been, but he soon turned his attention back to the issue at hand.

"Look, I promise you that I will be careful. It'll be over in a mere moment, no need to worry." In spite of his comforting words, he was somewhat worried as to what might have caused her to build such a fear of needles. She had said that she hadn't met many doctors, so perhaps some amateur had once treated her? If this 'hunters' organisation of hers was underground, it was not unlikely. Ace fought her own panic for a moment, forcing her breath to even out and slow down to normal. Then she looked up at him, her jaw set.

"Fine. But if you screw up, I will kill you."

For some reason, Hank found that rather amusing.


	3. The hunter's heart

"So, what's my blood showing?" Ace inquired mercilessly, for the fifth time in fifteen minutes. Hank huffed in annoyance, not sure for how much longer he could endure her looking over his shoulder at the test results slowly filing in on the computer screen. A little red warning sign in the corner of the program he was running, however, diverted his attention and he frowned. Interesting, and slightly unsettling.

"Well, for one, your genetic makeup is slightly different than ours. My computer think's you're a mutant, but it does not detect the x-gene. It is quite confused, actually." He did not need to look at her to know what her expression was like, and the reaction he had anticipated came very shortly after, but not in the way he had foreseen. She moved some papers to the side – well, at least she wasn't throwing them on the floor – and sat, actually _sat_ on his desk! He could not resist growling, a hushed, throaty sound, but a growl nonetheless. It was his bloody desk!

But she did not move. Not an inch, she didn't even flinch. She just sent him a look that clearly told him that she had faced much worse than a growling blue furball.

"Alright, beastboy, that means your parallel dimension-theory has some backing, doesn't it?" She asked, sending him the most infuriating look, one eyebrow raised. He kept himself on a tight leash, hell bent on not giving in to her insistent attempts at pushing him over the edge. She was testing him, perhaps even without realising it herself, and he had passed her test several times over, but she continued to push the limits of his patience. Maybe she thought he needed to compensate for his furry look, and thus she drove him steadily further and further towards anger. Beastboy was only one of the nicknames she had already given him; in fact, she seemed worse than Logan when it came to that. At least he stuck with 'Furball'.

"Yes, it does offer some hard proof of that theorem." He said, turning his chair slightly to the side and taking off his glasses. He placed them beside the computer, and rested both hands in his lap. "It would seem that you have indeed crossed the pathway between two dimensions."

"That's not good." She frowned, her face tensing with some sort of instinctive worry. That was not exactly the reaction he had expected. He tilted his head slightly, and gave her an inquiring look. "And why is that?" He asked, his annoyance gone completely. This was a most interesting development on her case, and to tell the truth, she was beginning to intrigue him. Her reactions and actions showed a remarkably keen instinct and a will to listen to it, as a result she had quick reflexes and problem-solving. She was also, contrary to what one might think based on her language, in possession of a keen intellect. Not genius-level, and no more than average when it came to science, but she knew things about history and legend that he had never heard of before, and she remembered them as keenly as an encyclopaedia.

"If I made it, so can other things. Hell, that planebreaker could send all sorts of things after me. Skinchangers, demons, maybe even tricksters. And in this world there aren't any hunters besides me, you'll all be seriously screwed over." She leaned forward slightly, as if to underline the importance of her words. "Mind you, if he sends just one vampire or werewolf, even you mutant-people can't stop them from multiplying like freaking wildfire." She was genuinely concerned, but her tone was so matter-of-fact that it didn't really shine through. Was she perhaps… scared? She hid it well, if that was the case.

"They will be like a new plague, you mean?" Now that would be bad, that would be really bad. And if he understood her correctly, it would be-

"Yeah, a bloody living plague. That kills with stealth and looks like human beings. Hell, in the case of werewolves they are human beings. It's kinda heartbreaking to shoot them, but it has to be done." She casually looked away from him, but he noticed the slight downturn of the corners of her mouth. Sadness? Regret? He could do nothing but guess at her feelings, she hid them behind complicated layers of illogical reactions an expressions.

"I take it you have done so before?" He kept his eyes on her face, carefully observing her reactions. Yes, there it was again, the slight downwards curl of her mouth. It was such a small thing, really, but it made him want to comfort her, knowing all too well that she would reject that immediately.

"I eradicated a few, yes." She looked back at him, suddenly angered. Probably due to his questions, the subject seemed rather emotional to her. "Look, just leave it, okay? I don't wanna talk about it." He immediately regretted having made such an inquiry, she was clearly hardening up again, closing him out of whatever little bit of her true nature he had seen. Perhaps she was close to breaking? The trauma of finding herself in another world would surely weigh heavily upon her emotions. If he just pushed her a little further…

"And why is that? I want to understand." He caught her eyes in a fierce battle of wills for a moment, and then she broke.

"You can't understand, okay? You can't see them as they suddenly snap out of their transformation with a silver bullet in their chest. Listen, you don't want to understand. Got it? You're better off without even knowing any of this. Anyone would be." Her words started off as angry, but as she spoke of it, they became slightly blurred with sadness.

"What about you?" He kept eye contact, and his steady gaze did not waver for even a second, neither did his calm, serious voice. She sighed deeply, her lips pushed together in a thin line of determination. Determination for what? Not shedding a tear? She looked as though it would do her good to cry.

"I hunt the sons of bitches. I kill them so everyone doesn't have to know, it's what my family's always done, it's our lives for all those other lives that we save." Hell, she had given up trying to avoid answering his questions, maybe if she did he would finally bugger off and shut up about it. She hated it when people was fascinated about what she did. She wasn't some sacred warrior, and she wouldn't be romanticised or put in some glorified box.

"And it's worth it?"

She hesitated to answer that. She wasn't sure, if she had to answer as Ace, hell no. As a hunter, yes. For humanity, definitely yes. "In the big picture, yeah. The small one? Maybe not so much. But it's the big picture that counts."

"You sound like one of us…" Hank mumbled, glancing at the screen again. This conversation was clearly over, she had said what she was willing to say, for now. He would, however, not stop making inquiries. He was genuinely concerned for her mental health if she didn't start talking about the obviously traumatic things she had been through. "Test says you're in prime health." He said, forcing his words to be lighter in tone than he actually felt. She sent him the slightest cocky smile, seemingly all too eager to change the subject.

"Told you so."


	4. Ace of Hearts

It had been three days since her sudden appearing out of thin air, and Ace was slowly getting used to the new world she had landed in. Well, getting used to was perhaps too generous a term, since she practically did not go outside the lab, and when she did, it was at night when no one else was up and about, save occasionally Hank if he was working late. She felt very insecure about the whole thing, and it annoyed her to no end. She didn't know how the authorities here worked, or more importantly how to cheat them as she had in her world, and she wasn't sure which myths were consistent and which legends differed. In short, her entire life's worth of experience and knowledge, carefully amassed and memorised, was useless. It made her restless and withdrawn, and she stuck to what she knew from this world, which was Hank and Charles, and the lab. It was unsettling even to her how little she dared. The only small comfort was a radio, which surprisingly had enabled her to find a channel playing only old rock hits, and it gave her a sense that perhaps these worlds were not as different as she had thought.

She was listening to this channel, sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, eyes closed as the tunes of 'Help' by The Beatles made memories float in front of her mind's eye like pictures from an old, faded album. Sandra featured in most of them, countless miles driven in the old Opel pickup across roads that cut through endless wasteland. Salting and burning their first set of bones, shooting their first vampire, exorcising their first demon, all those things that seemed so far away now. She was so lost in the memories that she did not hear the door open and close, nor did she register the footsteps before they were alarmingly close. She knew the footsteps, though, and so she did not jump up and her defensive instincts stayed in their uneasy, music-induced hibernation. She opened her eyes and looked up, finding Hank looking down at her over the rim of his glasses. She had just about gotten used to hit blue, furry outward appearance, and she found that she liked the man pretty well. He was intelligent, albeit a bit too science-y in her opinion, and seemed to be kind and eccentric, which was definitely something she thought very highly of. Eccentric people were usually the ones most likely to believe the truth, no matter of unlikely and odd it seemed. Right now, however, he was looking worried.

"Don't you think it's about time you started moving beyond the lab?" He asked, squatting down in front of her since she obviously wasn't going to stand up just to be at eye-height. Not that she really would anyway, he was several inches taller than her. She shrugged, turning down the volume of the radio slightly, reducing the music to a slight, soothing background buzz. "I do move beyond the lab. You just don't notice." She pointed out, staring him straight in the eye. Stubborn, that she was, stubborn as ever. He sighed, removing his glasses and placing them in the breast pocket of his lab coat. "In the middle of the night, yes, but that wasn't what I meant. You know that." His honest concern finally punched through and her stubborn opposing ceased. She sighed and leaned her head against the wall, hugging her knees, finally expressing her insecurity.

"Doctor McCoy-"

"Hank, please." His correction made her look up at him, briefly, before she nodded.

"Hank." She hesitated, the name felt a bit odd on her tongue., but not bad. "This world, I do not know it very well. Back in my world, I was born and raised for a very specific task. I never learnt anything that wasn't useful for hunting. In this world, hunting isn't necessary, because there's nothing to hunt." She pressed her lips together in a determined expression, meeting his blue-eyed gaze. It was time she told him exactly what she was.

"I shot a gun for the first time on my fifth birthday, I staked my first vampire at eleven. My father took me hunting when I was ten – there was never any choice for me. I know nothing but hunting and killing." She looked away from him when she saw the pity in his eyes – she didn't want to be pitied, she had grown strong from her childhood, she had saved lives back on her own world. "Here, in your world, the things I've been raised to destroy don't exist at all. I have no livelihood here, no use." She didn't, as some might have expected, feel sadness welling up, nor did she feel tears threatening to fall. All she felt was a deep, black pit in her stomach, a dark feeling of uselessness and hopelessness, which she had only experienced once before, and that had been when she held her father's mutilated corpse in her arms. She hadn't cried then, either. In fact, she doubted that she had any tears to shed at all, crying wasn't her thing.

Hank couldn't miss the bleak look in her eyes, and he responded almost immediately, taking her very much by surprise. Suddenly, Ace found herself enveloped in a comforting embrace that she had definitely not seen coming. She stiffened for a moment, unsure of how to respond to such a gesture. Warm hugs wasn't something she was used to at all, but after a few moments of hesitation, she allowed herself to relax and reciprocate, wrapping her arms as far around his middle as she could. He wasn't exactly light as a feather, mainly, it seemed, because of an overabundance of muscle, so she could only just reach around him. After nearly a minute, it began to get really awkward for her, especially since she wasn't used to hugging. Even so, she found herself surprisingly reluctant to let go and end the contact.

"It's okay, you know. It wasn't a bad childhood, I just played with unloaded guns instead of dolls. No big deal." The only response she got was his grip around her tightening. Alright then, she would indulge for a moment longer, it wasn't unpleasant after all.

She almost missed him, but when her gaze immediately returned to the middle of the room, there he was. That face wasn't one she could mistake for any other being, human or otherwise.

"Oh my god." Her sudden alertness caused Hank to let go of her and look in the same direction she was. There could be no doubt he was seeing the same as her, because he stood up, eyes narrowed with suspicion at the newcomer. Ace, too, got up from the floor, staring without restraint at the slim, black-haired man that stood before her. Death stared right back, though his chiselled face was dominated by an expression of apathy more than anything else.

"Oh my god." She mumbled again, fighting the sudden urge to dance with elation and smile broadly. She shouldn't be happy to see the pale horseman, but here he was, and she was thrilled. A creature from her world at last! Death raised a condescending eyebrow at her, sensing the sudden uplifting mood she was in.

"I assume you know this man?" Hank's words abruptly ended her trail of thoughts, and she snapped out of her dumbstruck surprise. She nodded, still trying to fight the urge to smile. "I do. This is the Death of my world, the eldest of the four horsemen." Suddenly she realised the severity of her situation if he was here, she had been elated to see another being from her dimension, but Death of all creatures? She wasn't so sure she should be happy any longer. "Come to think of it, why are you here?" She asked, turning back to Death. He simply returned her gaze, unblinking.

"I came for you." He said, his voice cold as though he was just pointing out an obvious fact. "You don't belong here."

"Yeah, I know. But why you? I'm not supposed to die yet, am I?" She was starting to get really worried now, and through the corner of her eye she could see Hank sending her a protective look. Odd. But she didn't think any more of it than that.

"No, not yet. However, with Aion's interference, the only way to get you back and restore order to the interdimensional realm is to reap your soul and take you to my domain."


	5. A brush with Death

"No. No-no-no. You are not reaping me, that is just not happening!" Ace stepped back, her hunter instincts immediately kicking in. She reached for the gun in her belt, only to find that it was, of course, not there. Death only tilted his head slightly, walking towards her with short, measured steps, his hand slowly raising. She knew that if he as much as touched her, lights were out just like that. Snap. One little touch was all it took, and she'd be out cold. That was, frankly, hella terrifying.

She'd pretty much expected Hank to step up, and he did step forward, right in Death's path. The Grim Reaper halted, his hand mere inches from Hank's arm. The horseman just raised his eyebrows at the blue-furred man as he stood in his way, then sighed deeply. "I'm not here for you. Please step aside." All the response he got was a low growl, and Death simply sighed once more. "Very well then, if you insist." Slowly, Death stepped closer to Hank, his hand slowly nearing its target. Just one touch and it'd be over. He was literally only millimetres away when finally Ace could take no more.

"Stop!" She resolutely stepped forward, pushing Hank aside, safely out of Death's reach. Facing the horseman with somewhat wavering courage, she held out a hand. "Reap me then, but don't touch any of the people here." Death did not respond, he merely reached for her hand, his face a mask of cynical apathy. She closed her eyes tightly, awaiting his cold touch as her heart began to race and her breathing sped up.

"You should think twice before you do that." Ace nearly grimaced – why did Hank have to postpone the inevitable? It was quite obvious that Death was not about to let her go, and she would rather have him reap her soul now than in a few minutes. Death reluctantly halted, his hand outstretched to the point where his fingertips nearly touched Ace's. When she opened her eyes he was looking at Hank with ill-hidden annoyance. The scientist had donned his glasses again. Oh goodie, made him look much more science-y. Not that Ace cared about that.

"If I am not mistaken – and I very rarely am – then the established bridge between our dimensions will not be destroyed simply by the death of Ace. She came through, you came through, and it is more than likely that more creatures will come through." Hank silenced when Death caught his gaze, but the horseman only inclined his head slightly in a gesture for him to continue. He was handling it well, Ace had to give that to him, he did not seem panicked or nervous, in fact he was as calm as she would've been if she had had anything to oppose Death with. As it was, she didn't. But he clearly had.

"When more creatures do come through, they will undoubtedly attempt to wreck some manner of chaos upon our world. If Ace remains here, alive and able to fight, she can minimize the damage done, and thereby guard the stability of the inter-dimensional realm. If you kill her, no one in this dimension will have the expertise to deal with those creatures, and the damage will be substantial." Hank was speaking a little faster than usual, but apart from that, he seemed quite cold. Only the smallest of signs, his fidgeting with the sleeve of his lab coat with one hand and a slight downwards curl of one of the corners of his mouth, revealed that he was all but happy with the situation. Death listened, and he listened intently, much to Ace's surprise. He wasn't exactly the way she had thought he would be, of course she'd heard he was different, but she had never had the chance to see for herself during her brief encounters with him.

"I see." Death tilted his head first slightly to one side, then the other, looking at Hank as though trying to cross-examine him to ensure that this was not some wild attempt at a lie. Of course he instantly realised the logic in the argument, and he also knew that the scientist was right, he was just truly opposed to compromising. It seemed, unfortunately, to be necessary in this situation. He should have seen that, he was Death, the pale horseman, he had always been the one with the big picture, how had he been blinded? Well, it wasn't exactly his dimension…

"Your argument is valid, of course. I will make an exception." To Ace's great relief, he withdrew his hand, and she stood for a moment, regaining control of her racing heart, before she stepped away. Just to be at a safe distance. Death held up a finger, silencing whatever relieved sigh might have come from either of the two mortals. "But there is one condition; When she is to die, I must be the one to reap her soul. You must keep her alive until I come back for her when she has reached the age in which she would have died had she been in her own dimension." Without even waiting for a response, Death turned around, and in the blink of an eye, he was gone. Ace was left practically gasping for air as though she really had died for a moment, and she felt as though she was tasting sweet air that she never thought she would breathe.

Hank was not nearly as stunned as she was, for some reason, and as he removed his glasses once again, this time placing them carefully on his desk, which stood only a few steps away. He had his back turned to her, both hands placed flatly on the desk as he leaned heavily against it. "You seem to be attracting the attention of some quite powerful entities of your dimension, Ace."

She wasn't even listening to him, but merely staring at his back, his actions only now fully sinking in. "You could have died, why the hell did you defend me?" She did not mean to sound accusing, but she did. Mostly it was an automatic response to the shock of having the personification of Death literally one breath away from ending her life with nothing but a single touch. He did not turn around, but merely sighed at her, and she immediately realised that she had been wrong to bite at him like that. "I should say thank you. You saved my life." Asking why was pointless, she probably wouldn't understand anyway, or it would just be weird. If he had some emotional reason for it, she did not want to know. That would be awkward beyond measure.

"You are the only defence we have if something does come through from your dimension, you said so yourself. We will be in grave danger if vampires or werewolves began spreading." Now, that was an explanation she could wrap her head around, although there was something in his eyes that she couldn't quite grasp, Oh, nevermind. It wasn't important. She was alive, that was what mattered. The rest they could deal with later.

"Yeah, that's true. So… maybe you could show me the grounds and I'll tell you what safety precautions you should take?" Yup, that was good, Ace, change the subject. Away from all the touchy-feely stuff. To safe, solid ground. Safety, yeah, she could deal with that.

It took a moment for him to respond, he seemed slightly befuddled, but regained his composure almost immediately. "Yes, yes of course. What precautions do you have in mind?" He asked with genuine interest, ready to take whatever steps she thought necessary. Any steps that were reasonable, of course.

She smiled devilishly, more than delighted to be back in her trade.

"Generous amounts of salt, for starters."


	6. Silence before the storm

"And you're sure that this will work?" Hank did not sound very confident as he glanced with some scepticism at her handiwork. Four bags, red, green, blue and yellow, each containing either sage, lavender, rosemary or thyme, along with salt. Ace nodded, tying up the last one with a tight knot, which she had learnt from a hoodoo priestess back in the day. "Oh yeah, this'll do the trick alright. No ghosts, and demons can't get in. Or out, for that matter." She tossed the bag in the air and caught it expertly with a satisfied smirk. Her immense relief at being back to her old mischiefs was obvious, and Hank couldn't help but get slightly caught up in it as well, even though he was a sceptic towards these things, both by nature and trade. Before she popped up, he hadn't been one to give any credit to superstitions, but he couldn't very well deny the proof he'd seen. He had even gone so far as to check the surveillance tapes of his lab, and had found that the man had indeed showed up. There was just no denying it at this point.

He shot a glance at the ten-gallon tank she'd requested, which he had found in the form of an empty aquarium stuffed away in the attic. He didn't really see the point in tossing water at demons, but he had realised what she meant to do with it when she'd also asked him to find a crucifix or a rosary. Holy water, she'd explained, would harm demons, but not their human hosts. To humans it was just normal water, so it was also a way of testing who might be possessed. It was, at any rate, good to have around just in case. He looked around his lab, unable to shake off the feeling that this was really odd. He was not used to having salt in his window sills and doorway, and there was a 'devil's trap' painted in black on the ceiling a few steps away from the door. God, if anyone saw this without knowing the circumstanced, he'd earn himself a one-way ticket to the madhouse.

"Right, let's go through this one more time-"

"I do remember, you know. Red, south. Blue, west. Green, north. Yellow, east." They had gone through this about one dozen times, not that Hank had been counting, and although he understood the importance of the placement of the bags, he really didn't need the instructions more than once. "I understand your enthusiasm for this, but please do not expect me to feel the same." He knew she needed reminding once in a while, she got quite carried away, and he tried to deliver it with a gentleness to his voice to ensure that she did not feel as though he was annoyed with her. Annoyed was not even close to what he was, he was intrigued by the sheer amount of information she had amassed in her head, and the creativity with which she used it. Her thought process certainly was unusual. Her face fell for a moment, but then she smiled awkwardly. "Yeah, sorry. I keep forgetting that Sandra's not here." That name again, he had to ask now. She'd mentioned it a few times.

"Sandra being…?" He couldn't miss the way her eyes turned distant, as though she was remembering, or how her smile turned unmistakably sad. "My hunting partner." An airy, humourless chuckle escaped her, and she ran her fingers through her slightly ruffled blonde hair. "She's probably at the Roadhouse rounding up other hunters to try getting me back. They won't succeed, of course, so they'll try to kill that son-of-a – I mean the planebreaker." She was trying to stay cool, but he could tell that she was distressed. At least she was talking about it now, seemingly she'd begun to trust him after he stood up against Death for her. Well, if that wasn't a sign of loyalty, he didn't know what was.

"I do apologise, I did not mean to bring up an upsetting subject." His apology did not have the desired effect, she just shrugged it off, checking the knots on the bags one more time, even though it really wasn't necessary. Then, to his great surprise, she tossed them at him, and he only just managed to snatch them from the air. "Get these in place, I'll finish down here." There was no hint of sadness or any form of bitterness in her eyes now, and he presumed that she had already put their conversation behind her. It never ceased to amaze him how deeply animalistic Ace's thought process was at time, she seemed to live so much in the 'now' that he almost envied her for it. Then again, she must have gone through an awful lot to reach that state of mind, so maybe it wasn't opportune.

He left the lab without any further words, knowing per instinct that now wasn't the time for such things, but for actions. Protective measures, to be more precise. She would feel safer and more at home once they were in place, and judging by her ragged, sleepless look, she needed that badly.

When he returned, she was standing before the water-filled aquarium, the crucifix dipped in the water. She was mumbling something, but only when he silently moved closer could he discern the words. It was latin, church latin, which meant he didn't understand it entirely. He knew enough to be certain that it was a blessing and an invocation, though he couldn't tell exactly what it was about. There was no obvious result to it, no strange glows or odd ripples in the water. Just a constant chanting.

" _Exorcizo te, creatura aquæ, in nomine Dei Patris omnipotentis, et in nomine Jesu Christi, Filii ejus Domini nostri, et in virtute Spiritus Sancti: ut fias aqua exorcizata ad effugandam omnem potestatem inimici, et ipsum inimicum eradicare et explantare valeas cum angelis suis apostaticis, per virtutem ejusdem Domini nostri Jesu Christ: qui venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos et sæculum per ignem."_

After the third repetition, she pulled up the crucifix and turned around, stopping dead in her tracks as though she was surprised to see him. She tugged the crucifix into her pocket and sent him a crooked, self-assured smile. "That was that, then. Ten gallons of Holy Water is always a good place to start." She sounded tired. Come to think of it, she looked tired, too. Hank sighed, looking at her in a concerned way, that made her look anywhere but him.

"So you're happy now?"

Ace shook her head, much to his dismay, and crossed her arms. "I'll be happy once I have a shotgun that fires rock salt and a colt .45 with silver bullets. Oh, and a stake. And a silver knife to keep under my pillow." He couldn't help but snort in amusement at how crazy that statement would have sounded if he had not seen solid proof of the existence of supernatural creatures. "I'll work on that, trust me. For now, sleep might be advisable?" He suggested, his voice soft in an attempt to coax her subconscious to agree with him. He had found out that it often worked better than trying to tackle her stubbornness head-on. She wavered for a moment, seemingly battling the impending drowsiness, and then nodded hesitantly. "Sleep. Yeah, probably a good idea. I need that. Gotta stay sharp." They'd moved a proper bed into one of the smaller rooms by Hank's lab for her, but she hadn't used it as much as she should have. She was about to walk towards the door that led to the next room, the room where her bed was, when she suddenly stopped. She turned around with some unease to her expression and looked at him, carefully reconsidering what she was about to say.

"Could I… Could I sleep in here by any chance?" She began fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, one that the woman named Ororo had given her since she didn't have any spare ones, and was clearly feeling awkward. "Only it would make me feel safer, you know, with the salt and the holy water and the devil's trap."

Hank had initially been disinclined to allow her this, he did not like sharing his lab with anyone, and there were tests in progress in most cupboards and on the majority of the counters and even his desk. However, when he saw the look in her eyes, the deep, instinctive fear, he gave in. "Very well then. I'll just move your bed in." He wasn't keen on it, obviously, and she knew that. She could see it in his eyes and his movements, she could hear it in his voice. But she wouldn't deny that she was pleased. When he lifted her bed into the room, on his own, a feat that, to her, was impressive and to him nothing, she even managed a soft "Thank you."

He was not going to deny to himself that her gratitude pleased him, even to an extent he was not entirely happy with. Her words brought the slightest smile to his lips as he slowly walked out of his lab, turning off the lights as he went, leaving only the slight bioluminescence and soft buzz of some of his experiments in progress. He might as well call it a day and, for once, go to bed early.


	7. Soul-brother

Ace winced as the small, hollow needle pierced the skin of the inside of her elbow, doing her best to sit completely still so Hank could find the vein he was aiming for. She hated needles, especially this kind, and he'd already pushed his luck a week ago with the first blood test. This, of course, spawned the necessary question:

"Why exactly am I doing this, again?" She asked through clenched teeth, trying to keep the muscles in her left arm relaxed and failing miserably at doing so. Hank couldn't help but chuckle at her words, carefully monitoring the red flow of blood in the small plastic tube. "Because I asked you, and you could not bear to refuse me." He was not usually one to make attempts at anything resembling her humour, but seeing as she had one of her most hated objects embedded in her arm, he figured he would give it a try. His reward came immediately when she smiled broadly and shook her head lightly at him. "Alright, but apart from that?" He huffed in mock displeasure that she needed more information than he had given, and her smile broadened just enough for him to notice. "Well, if you really need to know, I want to sequence the differences in your DNA from ours, and thus attempt to identify the genetic difference between beings from my dimension, and beings from yours." She nodded, he had told her this before, of course, but after the word 'blood test' she had kinda stopped listening and had a minor panic attack. "Right, so you can set up a warning system that will detect if anything appears."

He was silent for a moment, carefully removing the needle and pressing a small sterile gauze sponge upon the tiny prick in her arm. "Exactly. Come to think of it, what is the cause of your detest of needles, if it be known?" She had been opening up to him during the past few days, and he had begun to dare ask questions as they popped up in his mind, without fear of rejection. She sighed deeply, wincing at the thought of a painful, literally, and rather disturbing memory. "You know about Djinn?" She asked, sending him a questioning glance. He shrugged in response, raking his mind for any bells ringing. "Originates in Arabic folklore, the three-wishes grated if you rub a lamp creature?"

"That's it. Except, they're not really that benevolent. What they really do is put their victims into a comatose state and induce illusions of their dream life, to keep them from waking up while the Djinn feeds on their blood." She swallowed as if trying to withhold the sheer nastiness of the information she was giving. "Since the invention of constant blood-drawing with needles, they've been using those. It's rather nasty, actually."

Hank could almost picture it, a dimly lit room with halfway dead bodies hanging from the ceiling, blood constantly dripping through a plastic tube and into a bag. "That is rather distasteful. You were caught by one of them, I presume?" He was right, judging by the way she shivered and cringed for a moment, and she nodded, taking a moment to pull herself together again. "Sandra found me and stabbed the bastard, a silver knife dipped in lamb's blood does the trick, but I was out cold for days. I very nearly died, and that was because of a needle in my neck."

Hank involuntarily rubbed his neck in a subconscious reaction of compassion, he could almost feel the needle as she described it, and he suddenly had a far better understanding of why she disliked needles. He would, too, if someone had tried to slowly drain him of all blood with one. "That is… truly nasty." He admitted, cringing at the thought of it in much the same way she had. Arteries in the neck were not to be messed around with, even he was deterred by the idea of doing so. Ace shrugged, not too keen on staying on that subject. "Yeah, it is. But it isn't the worst."

He frowned with genuine concern, the world she came from was downright disgusting if these things roamed free. No wonder she was so vastly different from anyone he had ever known before – such a world as hers would without a doubt produce some pretty messed-up individuals. "Dare I ask what the worst is?" He ventured, not sure he really wanted to know. It probably wouldn't do anything good for his ability to sleep tonight, but his curiosity got the best of him. She resolutely shook her head. "Nu-uh. You do not, and I am not ready to discuss such things with you yet, Doctor Hank McCoy, in fact, I might never be." In response to the stern and very insistent gaze, he wisely decided not to push that subject any further.

He had a feeling as to what she meant by that statement, and it was not somewhere he wanted to go with her, or a discussion he would feel comfortable having.

Hank was saved by the gong when the door to his lab practically slammed open and none other than Wolverine stepped through. The scruffy man looked up and merely raised an eyebrow at the devil's trap painted in the ceiling, shrugging to himself as though he'd seen much weirder things. Which, when he came to think of it, he had. "Hiya, Furball. I came to check on that new girl the prof. mentioned." Straight to the point, that was Logan for you, Hank thought to himself. Ace looked the stranger over with a critical gaze, and she seemed to find him to her liking. That, for some reason, caused a bitter spark of something akin to jealousy to rise within Hank. He immediately subdued it and brushed it off as nothing.

"That'd be me. I'm Ace." They seemed to speak the same language, so to speak, as no physical greeting was necessary, not even a handshake or an awkward wave. They just stared each other down for a few seconds, and then seemingly decided that the other was not so bad, and then exchanged half-smiles. It was almost animalistic, Hank thought to himself, which seemed to fit the two respective personalities rather well. Logan crossed his arms, and Ace immediately responded with a similar gesture. "So what's your mutation?" he asked, and she immediately stopped smiling, her expression turning a mix of annoyed and regretful. Hank frowned at that, regretful? Did she actually want a mutation, knowing what he looked like, what it did to people?

"I don't have one. I'm just a hunter of the supernatural from another dimension. Where the supernatural actually exists." She seemed perfectly calm, even the slightest bit cold, and Logan was suddenly the same way. They were back to carefully trying to judge whether the other was trustworthy and strong. "I'd say that was bullshit, but since Furball has done all this to his lab, it isn't impossible." Abruptly, his gaze turned to Hank. "Is it true, Furball?" The blue mutant cursed inwardly, why did Logan have to mix him into this? They were more capable of solving their sudden issues than he was. He sighed deeply, leaning back in his chair. "Yes, according to all tests and evidence, it is both possible and true."

Ace eyed Logan again, seemingly judging his muscle this time, and she couldn't help but raise her eyebrows in an appreciative expression. "I'll tell you one thing; you'd make one hell of a hunter." She might as well have catcalled him, it felt that way to Hank. Her praise of Logan made him feel awkward, uncomfortable and, much to his dismay, envious. Logan's reaction did not make it better, he smirked. He actually smirked, as though he'd just been given her phone number and promised a –

No, Hank would not finish that thought.

"Thanks. Shame about that mutation, I wouldn't might fighting with ya." This time it was Ace's turn to smirk, and it didn't make Hank feel any better. Logan, of course, did not fail to notice this, and the scruffy mutant immediately laughed, a short, barking laugh that made Ace raise an eyebrow, wondering what the hell had caused it. Logan was clearly about to say something snarky about how Hank should claim her if he wanted her, but she spoke first.

"Wait a second, do you sprout long metal claws from your knuckles?" Her question made bth Hank and Logan frown.

"Yeah, why?"

Ace's expression immediately changed to one of disbelief and realisation, in short, she looked like someone who had had an epiphany. "Oh. My. God. You're Wolverine." Hank was the only one of the two mutants who realised the significance of this recognition. He looked stunned for a moment, but quickly began questioning her. "Where do you know him from?"

"Saturday morning TV, I sometimes catch a glimpse of the cartoons. It's not really mu thing, comics ad stuff, but you're one of those characters that everyone knows, like Superman, Batman and the Hulk." Her words made very little sense to Logan, who looked from Hank to Ace with a vaguely disturbed expression. "I'm a cartoon in your dimension?" He asked hesitantly, not sure whether he should be pleased or not. She just nodded. "Yeah, but also a movie character. That's why you seemed familiar, your face was all over New York a few years ago, when I was there to hunt some Amazonians."

"There's a guy who looks like me in your dimension?" Logan asked, beginning to catch up with the parallel-dimension concept. Ace once again nodded. "Yup. And if you're on film, I'd guess the rest of you are as well. Kinda cool, I almost wish I'd watched those."

Logan nodded once, sending her another smirk, all the while eyeing Hank with such smugness, even Ace couldn't miss it. She didn't comment on it, though. "Well, now ya get to watch us live. I'd say that's better. I gotta go though, I have a team to train." And with that, he left.

After a few seconds, Ace sent Hank a bemused look. "A team?" She inquired, leaning slightly closer in a quizzical stance. It affected Hank more than he cared to admit, those few centimeters. He nodded. "Yes, a team of young mutants training their abilities."

"Young? Like children."

"Teenagers." Hank corrected.

"Who in their right mind would let anyone like me or him anywhere near teenagers?"


	8. Black eye of the Storm

Three weeks had passed since Ace had fallen through the dimensional bridge, and nothing new had appeared. It annoyed her to no end, since her hunter's instincts were screaming that something had to be off, and her suspicion towards everyone, even Hank, was beginning to unnerve them. She knew they were irritated by it, but she tried her best to keep it from affecting her dealings with the mutants. She had begun to venture up and even out of the mansion, and although she had begun to get used to the children and their powers, she was still unsettled by having to dodge flying objects whenever she passed a class of telekinetic students, and occasionally also a stray flame or suchlike. She often had to quell the urge to whisper 'Christo' when she encountered one of the children who were more noticeably marked by their mutation, of course, she knew she shouldn't feel that way about it, and she did her best to ignore her instincts, but it was difficult. It had taken her days to get used to Hank, and he was just one case.

She was in the library, where she often found herself, reading up on myth and legend to recreate her vast knowledge on the supernatural. There were not that many differences, and she was relieved that she could at least trust her knowledge to be true, when not much else was. She was interrupted in her studies of a particularly old and dusty volume of the Key of Solomon, when Ororo, also known as Storm, walked in. At first, Ace took little notice of her, just send her a nod in greeting, to absorbed by what she was reading to fully pay attention to what the mutant was here for. However, after some minutes it became evident to Ace's instincts that something was not right. Out of the corner of her eye, she studied Storm closely, careful not to divulge the fact that she was looking at her, and she noticed that the mutant was walking differently, and she was browsing for books in the wrong section. Storm never studied weather patterns.

"Christo." Ace whispered, just loud enough for it to be audible to the other woman. Storm flinched. As she turned to look at the hunter, Ace had already stood up and was heading for the door. She lingered just long enough to see Storm's eyes go black. Well, shit.

Hurrying down the hallway in a rather ungraceful manner, evading unnecessary decorations like pots and half-tables, she heard the door to the library slam open, and the possessed Storm scurried after her, stumbling a few times over the aforementioned decorations, which Ace threw to the floor as she ran, to block the path. She almost made it to the lab when she felt a strong hand grasp her arm, and she turned around, using the force in the spin to propel a fist towards Storm's jaw. It hit her square, and she stumbled enough to allow Ace to break free, open the door and tumble head-first into the lab. The demon was quick, and managed to grasp her ankle, causing her to fall. Hank was sitting by his desk, and great was his shock when Ace was suddenly lying on his floor, Storm holding her down while they tried to land punches at each other.

"Hank!" Ace was silenced when she avoided a punch only by a clever manoeuvre, managing to roll away from the demon. "She's…" She blocked a hit with her arm, and she was pretty sure she would have a fist-sized bruise there for weeks. Ace retaliated with a kick to the demon's stomach, causing it to howl with pain. "… Possessed!" The hunter had only just uttered the word when a strong punch to the side of her head sent her spinning against the wall, where she only just remained standing. The demon-possessed Storm managed to kick her in the ribs, a sickly crack alerted Ace to the fact that some of them had evidently broken, before Hank threw himself at the other mutant, enveloping her in a tight grip, which made her unable to move. Blood dripping from a cracked lip, Ace stood up properly, her right hand pressed against the broken ribs in her left side in an attempt to fight the sharp pain that came with every breath she took.

"The devil's trap, get her under the devil's trap…" The hunter mumbled, wavering on her feet. Damn, that punch to her head had been powerful. She was seeing stars, and something told her she would be out cold in a moment. Hank did as he was told, and the demon stopped struggling the moment it was beneath the binding sigil, rendered powerless. "Tie it… To a chair. I'll… be a moment." Ace managed to stammer, before he black spots in her peripheral vision grew to fill her eyes and her head, and she fell to the ground with a heavy thud. God, Storm was bloody strong.

Hank first did as he had been told, although tying his colleague to a chair under a painted symbol seemed very, very odd to him. When the demon flashed its black eyes though, those feelings subsided. He had to give it to Ace, she was strong. Storm was a very fit and powerful woman, and the hunter had managed to land several punches and kicks that only one skilled with hand-to-hand combat would have any chance of landing. Constantly eyeing the unconscious Ace, he forced himself to focus on the task at hand before he went to her. He had only just finished the last knot when he rushed to her side, lifting her carefully. She whined with pain, but it was an instinctive reaction. He had heard the sound of her ribs cracking, and it was clear to him that she was out cold. The blossoming black eye and bruise on her right cheek were of greater immediate concern to him, seeing as they could potentially be warnings of greater damage done to her skull. After he had placed her on her bed, he carefully felt the wounded spots with nimble, gentle fingertips, and, to his great relief, felt to signs of any greater damage.

He only felt the slightest tinge of embarrassment at having to remove her shirt to bandage her ribs, but as a doctor he blocked that out. This was a medical situation, and he had to handle it as Doctor McCoy, and not Hank. The demon, amazingly, did not interrupt him all this while, but when he stepped away from Ace, his concerned look running over her damages one more time, he was interrupted by Storm's voice.

"You care for her." There was a harshness to her voice that he had never heard before, and he knew that it was the demon. He turned around to face the bound creature with a hard look. The demon-possessed Storm only cackled, throwing her head back in a maniacal laugh. "You care for her so much, oh how it must hurt. Poor, poor beastie." Hank did not respond, but a muscle in his jaw tensed, and the demon noticed it. Another laughter came from Storm's throat, this one dark, cold and humourless. "I'm sorry to tell you, beastie, but she could never love someone like you. A big, furry, blue misfit. Oh no, she would want someone more like herself." When this spurred no reaction from Hank, the demon leaned forward. Or, at least as much forward as her bounds would let her, which was not much.

"Perhaps someone with _claws_?"

At that, Hank growled, a sound that came deep from his throat, from the Beast within him. He would have jumped at the demon, attacked it, torn it to shreds, just like the demon wanted. But he was interrupted by Ace's weak voice rising from behind him.

" _Exorcizamus te, omnis immunde spiritus, omni satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica_ …" The demon began to squirm against its binds, and the chair screeched across the floor from one side of the perimeter of the devil's trap to another. Ace continued, undeterred.

" _In nomini et virtute Domini nostri Jesu Christi, eradicare et effugare a Dei Ecclesia, ab animabus ad imaginem Dei conditis ac pretioso divini…_ " At this point, the possessed Storm was screaming, heaving for breath and clawing at the armrests of the chair to which it was bound. Her head began to snap first to one side, then the other, up and then down, to violently that Hank was afraid she'd break Storm's neck. The demon's screams almost drowned out Ace's chanting, but her weak voice continued in defiance and determination, with the final words.

" _Agni sanguini redemptis._ "

Ace let her head fall back down on the pillow, exhaling deeply while she fought the sickness that went to her stomach with every move. The demon threw its head back and through Storm's mouth was exorcised in a black cloud that disappeared into the devil's trap, on a one-way ticket to hell. Storm was left bound to the chair, her eyes wide and her mouth open as she gasped for air, recovering her wits for a moment. Then she let out a moan of pain, shaking her head as though trying to clear it. She froze as she realised that she was tied up, and as she lifted her gaze and stared at Hank, her eyes narrowed.

"I was possessed, I presume?" She asked. Hank only nodded, sending Ace a glance before freeing Storm of her bonds at the hunter's urging. "I remember some of it, oddly enough." Storm mumbled, rubbing first her wrists and then her bruised jaw. Ace drew a deep breath, trying to push herself up, but deciding not to when her head began to spin, making her feel even more sick than she already was. "That's… Perfectly normal." She managed to say through teeth that were clenched with pain. "Oh god, you throw some mean punches. No demon's ever… given me a concussion…" She drew a sharp breath as the stinging in her sides increased as she spoke. "… before." Finishing her sentence, she decided no more talking for now. She forced herself to breathe normally, although she winced with every breath. A few broken ribs and a concussion. That could have gone worse.

She didn't even want to think about what might have happened if the demon had possessed Hank.

The blue furred mutant hurried back to her side, examining her carefully, humming with annoyance as she pushed his hands away from her face when he meant to check her pupils. "Concussion." She whispered, wincing with every syllable in the word. He nodded grimly, concerned for her health as a doctor, and for her in general as a person. The demon had been right, of course. He cared. He had realised that.

"Yes, and three cracked ribs. I'm afraid you'll be out of commission for weeks." She winced at his words, mainly because she knew it meant spending said weeks bound to her bed. Now, she didn't much mind the lab, or her bed, or Hank, but weeks? That would set her on edge. But there was simply nothing for it.

She swore, a profanity so creative it made Hank raise his eyebrow at her sudden eloquence.


	9. Letting go

Ace slept on and off for the next four days, sleeping more often than she was awake. That was mostly because she allowed herself to, because she felt that she was safe. There was an almost constant guard at her bedside, and though she was barely awake to know all who sat there, she found that it was most often Hank, which pleased her, and Ororo, who almost apologised every time Ace as much as opened her eyes. That was, until the hunter had managed to explain that one could not, in fact, control anything while possessed, and she had had no way of defending herself against the demon taking over. On the second night, when she woke up briefly, Ace had been surprised to find Logan sitting beside her, fidgeting with his dog tags. Neither of them had said a word, as usual, they shared an instinctive mutual understanding, and she had merely gone back to sleep, but it was nice to know that he cared at least a little beneath the gruff exterior.

As she opened her eyes she knew that the fifth day had dawned, and she noticed that she was considerably more clear-minded than she had been since Ororo, possessed by a demon, had given her one of the worst concussions she had ever experienced. When she turned her head to look to the side, she found that Hank was sitting, slouching more like, in the chair, his eyes closed and his hands folded in his lap. Whether or not he was sleeping, she could not tell, but judging by his slow breathing, he just might be asleep. He looked peaceful, his brows not lined in deep concentration over some calculation, and not creased in worry over anything. It was refreshing to see him like this, and fascinating. Ace had seen many things through the years, but peace and quiet rest was not one of them. She sighed deeply, looking at his gentle expression with a warm gaze. As though he felt her looking at him, his eyes slowly opened. She immediately schooled her expression into something far more neutral, before he had a chance to see the look in her eyes. He had been sleeping, that much was clear from his slightly groggy expression, and she couldn't help the slight smile that came to her lips at the way he almost fell down the chair when he saw that she was awake.

"Welcome back." He said, almost too softly for her to hear, as he sat up properly. A smile crept to her lips again, but something in his eyes made it vanish almost immediately. Something was off, not something supernatural, but something personal. She looked at him with concern, which he returned with confusion. Then it dawned upon her that, just as any person who met a demon for the first time, he was trying to come to terms with something it had said. He didn't know that the bastards lied and told the truth in equal measure. "What did it say to you?" She asked, noticing how his eyes widened slightly with surprise, and she knew she'd hit it on the head. No doubt he was wondering how she knew to ask that question. But he wasn't keen on answering it. Hank shrugged, clearly trying to find a way around answering. Ace realised that it was too personal, too close, and her expression softened.

"You do know that they'll lie if it'll make their situation any better, right? You never know whether they're telling the truth or not, they know exactly what to say to hit home." Her words seemed to have the desired effect, he leaned back in his chair almost unnoticeably, and his eyes narrowed as he applied the new information to his mind. He looked overall relieved, and she couldn't help but reach out and place a hand on his arm, trying to move as little as she possibly could. In spite of her careful movements, a sharp pain shot up from her fractured ribs and she couldn't keep from wincing slightly. Hank didn't fail to notice her discomfort, and he placed a warm hand over hers. "Take a deep breath." He ordered, and Ace immediately realised the Doctor McCoy in his tone, she smiled weakly and did as he asked, though it wasn't very pleasant. It was both painful and relieving, to feel her lungs inflate fully. The warm hand over hers was a comfort though, she had to give him that.

"Six weeks, right?" She mumbled, and he frowned in confusion.

"What?"

"It takes six weeks to heal, right?" She explained, chuckling airily at the way his expression cleared and was replaced with understanding. He nodded, "Yes, six weeks is the usual timeframe for fractured ribs."

"And the concussion?"

"You've almost recovered from that." She'd been aware of that, of course, but she had asked anyway. All insecurities, all doubts and all awkwardness seemed to disappear from Hank's demeanour when he spoke of science or medicine, and he had begun to get flustered when she had asked about the demon's words, so she had naturally chosen to change the subject. She might not be a telepath, but she read people alright.

"Right. How's Storm?" Ace's raised eyebrow, and her slightly smug tone made Hank chuckle. He shook his head at her, clearly finding her question just as amusing as she did. "Ororo is fine. You bruised her jaw and ribs, but that's about it." Her disappointed 'aw' left him in a fit of laughter, that she had to really try hard not to join in on. Laughing wasn't really something she wanted to do with three broken ribs.

"Anything else?" she removed her hand from beneath his and pushed herself up in a sitting position, ignoring the pain that shot up from her ribs. She'd simply have to live with that for the next month-and-a-half. Hank reached behind her and carefully adjusted her pillow so that when she leaned back, she was still resting against it. He shrugged at her question. "Ororo has begun to whisper 'christo' at times, and I have nearly found the genetic sequence that separated beings from your dimension and mine." That made her sit up straight, something she immediately regretted when a sharp sting reminded her of her wounded ribs. She carefully leaned back again.

"You've found it in my DNA? So you'll be able to create a warning system?" She quieted down when he held up a hand to silence her, looking a lot less enthusiastic than she was. "I said nearly. I'll need a sample from another individual to be sure, and even then the system might not be as effective as we could wish for."

"Let's hope you won't get a chance to get that sample." Ace replied, her enthusiasm now replaced by gloom. Her thoughts had fallen on Sandra again, they did that quite often, and it always brought on a bad mood. Chances were that she would never return to her dimension again, and as such she would not see her partner for the rest of her life. That hurt. Sandra was like a little sister and a best friend, they had saved each other's lives so many times Ace had lost count. Hank noticed her downcast look, and frowned, leaning forward slightly to grasp her hand, a move that almost shocked her. She let him, though.

"You're thinking about her again, aren't you?" His deep voice was concerned, and she offered him a sad smile in an attempt to reassure him that she was fine. "Yes. I was thinking about Sandra. I hope she's alright, but she might get herself killed without me." It was a weak attempt at a joke, and it completely fell through. She couldn't even cheer herself up when these sudden bouts of sadness overcame her. She just had to wait them out, and that wasn't as tough to do with Hank at her side as it was alone. With a deep sigh, she forced herself to open up. It seemed the right time, and the right person, and she couldn't bottle things up forever.

"We spent years together on the road, hunting those things were the only purpose we had. We didn't have a home, didn't have a base, moved from state to state all the time. We didn't have any constants but each other, you know?" She looked up at him, noticing that he looked at her as though he expected her to break into tears any moment. Maybe if she had been different, she would have, but as things were she just didn't cry. There weren't any tears for her to shed. "We came to the point where we barely ever said a word when it was really important, because we knew what the other one'd do or say. And now she's gone from me, and I feel like I've been cut in half. I know it's been like a month, but it still feels that way." No tears, but the deep, overwhelming sadness was the same. That dark pit in her stomach, filled with swirling blackness, was no less abysmal because of her lack of tears.

"Such a partnership is not impossible to find again." He said, unsure of whether that would comfort or upset her. He really wasn't good at handling situations like these, it wasn't was he usually did. But he had to try. And within his eyes, Ace saw not only concern, but also the slightest spark of hopefulness, so fragile that she didn't want to quell it. Still, she couldn't lie.

"I know. But what if something or someone takes me back to my world, and I'll have to go through the whole thing again?" It was unlikely, she knew that, and his slightly disappointed expression, even though he tried his best to hide it, almost hurt. "Besides, I don't really feel like touring the States with nothing to hunt, so…" Once again, she noticed the slightest signs of relief, the muscles around his eyes relaxing and his expression softening almost unnoticeably. "I think, for now, I'm good with putting aside my nomadic ways and staying put. It's… Nice to have a permanent place to stay for once. And people with a steady life around me, I like that." She knew what she meant, even if he didn't fully understand it. Giving up her life on the road wasn't just saying goodbye to her purpose, but also to her past. She was ready for something new, but unsure of whether she should reach out for it. She hadn't before, not for long. Men were for one night only, and love wasn't possible on the road. She was used to endangering everyone who came close to her, and to protect them, she had pushed them away. The big question was whether she was ready to stop doing that.

They sat in silence for a few, long, awkward moments, before Ace broke the silence. "I'm starving. Do you have any bacon?"

At once, the mood lifted, and they looked at each other and laughed.


	10. The war begins

Six weeks passed without incidents, which was, to Ace, unsettling in the beginning. No incidents, to her, meant that something big was one the rise, and her uneasiness was evident to everyone that was around her, Hank, Logan, Ororo and the Professor especially. Ace had this uncomfortable feeling that the bald man could read her thoughts, and she made it a point to keep her thoughts as blank as she could when he was around. That wasn't too much, luckily, and most of the time she spent with Hank, trying to figure out the frequency of her mind, which, the Professor had commented, was apparently different than those of their dimension. She and Hank had established that the hypothesis was true, but exactly where the difference lay they had not been able to establish. Ace didn't really understand all the science talk, but she appreciated spending time with the blue furred man, more than she cared to admit.

The very first thing she had been intent on doing once she recovered was to begin training, without the need for constant vigilance as well as regular brawls and fights, she was getting out of shape, as her brief battle against the demon-possessed Ororo had clearly shown. It was evident that Hank didn't fully endorse the idea of her pushing herself physically right away, but she wouldn't take no for an answer. As such, in the early morning exactly six weeks after her injury, she was up and running, literally. Hank had only allowed it provided she let him run with her, in case she relapsed or felt any pain, and he was jogging along beside her. It was evident, though, that he wasn't really making an effort, and when she asked him why, he simply shrugged.

"Because I can run forty miles per hour." Her gasp of surprise had clearly amused him, and he'd even smirked as she raised an eyebrow at him. "Okay, fair enough. I won't ask you to race me, then." She had to admit that she was getting out of breath, and it was only their second lap around the mansion. He chuckled at her words, moving a little closer. "That would probably be unwise, since you would be sure to lose." His sudden surge of confidence made Ace smile, and she found that she took it like a compliment every time he got even the slightest bit cocky. Usually he was restrained and he sometimes seemed insecure, but once in a while, when she had him under four eyes, she managed to make him feel confident. It was not an easy thing to do, but it really was rewarding.

After their fourth lap around the mansion, Ace had to call it quits, leaning forward, hands against her knees, in an attempt to catch her breath. "Damnit, I'm out of shape." She breathed, ignoring Hank's worried looks. She wasn't in any pain, so there was no reason to fuss about it. "I'll have to do this more often." She mumbled, shooting a glance at Hank and sending him a breathless smile in an attempt to ease his concern. It worked, so far as she could see. "Perhaps, but not today. Judging by your stamina and overall physical performance, you'll need a few days of restitution before your muscle tissue is fully –"

"Hank, I know. I didn't battle vampires without years and years of physical training, you know."

"Right, I do apologise." His words earned him nothing but an amused glance from her. She found it oddly adorable how he constantly sought to ensure her comfort and treat her like she was some kind of lady – she wasn't, she was a hunter. Still, it was nice to have a man around who wasn't constantly sharpening a blade, cleaning a gun or chugging beer. He had style, and she had to admit that she liked that.

It was at that moment Logan decided to pop his head out of the window to the common room, waving his arm. "Hey Ace! You might wanna see this, it looks like your kinda stuff." He shouted. Judging by the urgency in his voice, it was important, so Ace simply shot Hank an apologetic glance, dashed towards the window and jumped in, feet first, surprising a room practically full of mutants, and earning her a glare form the Professor, which she shrugged off.

The news channel was on, the TV flashing increasingly gory images of some bodies found in various states of very, very dead. What really caught the hunter's eyes though, were the bitemarks. Every body, however mutilated, had the same gory bitemarks on the side of the neck. There were only two things that could've caused such a thing.

"What's the moon phase?" She asked Logan, keeping her voice hushed to keep the other mutants from hearing. He looked at her with a vaguely amused look. "What, you think it's some kinda werewolf?" She rolled her eyes at his look, but immediately her expression turned serious as the news presenter continued her ceaseless blabber. 'Rabid dog' my ass, Ace thought.

"Very sharp, Wolverine, now do you know the moon phase or not?"

' _It is new tonight'_

Ace practically jumped, and she was aware that she let out a very colourful and rather loud swear, which made the nearest heads turn and stare. She glared the professor, who had turned his attention back to the screen. "Bloody hell, I'll never get used to the in-head talk. It's so freaky."

"What's the moon phase then, Scully?" Logan's gruff voice brought her back to reality, and his little hint to the TV show was almost like a breath of familiarity. A lot of hunters did that. She sighed and shook her head. "It's new. So it's not a werewolf, it's a vampire."

"That's bad?" Logan crossed his arms and kept his eyes on her face, ignoring the TV screen, and the others in the room, completely. She nodded. "Yeah, with this many victims, it's building up a nest. There's gotta be at least five of those bloodsucking bastards out there now." Her eyes briefly returned to the screen, skimming the headline. "Salem. An old haunt. I better go research."

He took a step towards her when she moved to head for the door. "Hey, kid, tell me if you need any help." She caught his eyes and noticed his smirk. She recognised that expression, she'd seen it on a lot of her own kind. "Don't wanna miss out on the party? Fine, I'll let you know." With that, she hurried out of the room, ignoring the fact that the majority of the mutants in there were staring at her uninhibitedly.

Once she got down to the lab, Hank was there, of course. He didn't look at her when she entered, instead keeping his eyes glued to the computer screen, where some kind of complicated chemical formula was streaming past his vision. "What's the news?" He asked, and she was strangely relieved to hear that he sounded perfectly content, not the least bit annoyed or withdrawn. She wasn't sure what caused it, but he sometimes seemed that way when she'd spent time with Logan, even though there was absolutely nothing to get withdrawn about.

"Vampires in Salem, Massachusetts. They're nesting" The shortness of her reply, and the urgency of her tone, made him pause whatever he was staring at, and he looked up at her instead, removing his glasses in the same fluid motion. "That is bad, I presume?" She nodded hurrying over to 'her side' of the lab, which had become stuffed with everything supernatural, and everything she could find bout the supernatural, over the course of the past three months. It briefly occurred to her that he hadn't been too keen to share in the beginning, but he didn't mind the least now. "Very, very bad. They're turning more humans every night. I need to get there as quick as I possibly can. The sooner I kill the sons of bitches, the god damn better."

Hank pressed the power button on his screen, making it go black, and stood up, eyeing her with some anticipation. "Can I be of any assistance?" She paused rummaging through the books and looked at him, her head slightly tilted. Her hesitation was not doubt in his strength, or his bravery, or his determination, but rather an acknowledgement of his decency, his morals, his very correct ethics.

"Can you rip a person's head off without hesitation?" She asked, crossing her arms as she turned to gaze at him, unblinkingly. He hesitated, which she had foreseen, but not for the reasons she had thought. He looked as though a particularly nasty memory was resurfacing in his mind, one that he would rather had stayed forgotten, buried deep within his subconscious, never to be seen.

"Yes. I am fully capable of that. I have… done so before." His sudden coldness made her want to go to him, wrap her arms around him and persuade the Hank she knew to come out again, but she knew she shouldn't. This kind of mentality, this kind of emotional control, this coldness, even if it was temporary, was what she needed of a hunter.

"Good, I don't need any hesitating." She said, turning back to the old, dusty volume of a renaissance legendarium which she had just opened. "We need wooden stakes, small and sharp enough to pierce flesh and muscle, and really, really sharp knives." She didn't need to turn back at him to notice how he mentally noted her requests and left the room without another word.

Silently, she blamed herself. This was selfish. It wouldn't be good for him, she shouldn't be dragging him into this. Logan was more than enough, and judging by how similar she and him were, he had beheaded people plenty of times before. Hank… He was different, he was sensitive. He wasn't a hunter by nature or choice, the coldness he had in him was only there because of the way he had been treated. Because of his insecurity. Because of how he looked, because he was different. But she wanted him to come, she wanted him to be with her. She wanted to feel safe, and he was safety. She was bringing him along for her own sake, and a part of her blamed her for that. It was the part of her that waited with bated breath for him to touch her, brush against her shoulder, the part of her that nearly blushed when he spoke to her.

And that part also wanted to fight beside him.

"There's just nothing for it, old girl. You've gone soft for the furball." She mumbled to herself, while leafing through the old parchment pages.


	11. I will be by your side

( Author's note: I am sorry for the long wait! I've been on vacation for two weeks without internet *shivers*. Thanks to terriblecupcakes732 for reminding me to resume as soon as I got back, it's nice to know that there are actually people reading this stuff. (And the only way I'll know is reviews – so please, if you like something or want to see something happen in the story, I am all ears!))

"No Hank, we can't use the jet." Ace said, her voice flat as she answered the unspoken question. Hank hadn't even gotten through the door yet, and he'd only inhaled, not getting the chance to say a thing. The hunter didn't look up from the table before her, counting the stakes and weapons, of all sorts, that she had managed to get her hands on since yesterday. "No offense meant to your skills and mojo and all, but they'll hear it, and it'll alert them to our presence. Which we really don't want." She could easily imagine the expression that went with the dissatisfied grumble coming from the mutant's throat, but she didn't care. No jet. Period.

"It would be the fastest-"

"They'll hear it."

"But the shrouding mechanisms –"

"Trust me, they'll hear it."

With a displeased sigh, Hank finally let the notion of using the X-jet go, knowing that she was the foremost expert, and highest authority, on matters concerning the supernatural. Not that he particularly liked the fact that it was, as such, her responsibility to fight said creatures, risking her life in the process, but he had to accept it. At least this time he, too, was prepared, and he could go with her. Logan coming along as well would mean a higher level of safety for Ace, so Hank just had to swallow his jealousy. Not that there seemed to be anything to be jealous of, but the demon had sown a seed that was not so easily removed from his heart.

"How, then, do you propose we get to Salem? It's almost a state away, and my appearance would cause quite the ruckus in public transports." He crossed his arms, trying and succeeding in getting her to look up. With a half-smile, she turned around and leaned back against the edge of the weapon-laden table. He had to admit, she looked ensnaringly confident in her true environment.

"Logan's bike." She replied, and he immediately frowned. Logan's motorcycle? How on earth did she think they could fit three people on that – and not three normal sized human beings, but two and one enlarged mutant. "You do realise that I won't fit on Logan's bike, yes?" He asked, his scepticism quite evident. She smirked, which, for some reason, seemed ill-boding to him. "Yeah, I do. But he's got a sidecar." Without really knowing where she got the nerve from, she looked at him with a gleam in her eyes and a suggestively raised eyebrow. "Although, I shamelessly admit, I wouldn't mind being squeezed between the two of you."

"Ace!" Hank sounded perfectly horrified, but also a little, just a little, amused. She threw her hands up and widened her eyes with mock indignation. "What? Come on, isn't that every girl's secret dream?" When all he did was snort and roll his eyes at her, she shrugged. "Can't see why not."

"How am I going to fit in any way comfortably in a sidecar?" He asked, changing the subject without blinking an eye. He had begun to get used to the occasional innuendoes and suggestive jests from her, but that by no means meant that he was unabashed by it. Rather the opposite, actually. She shrugged again. "Well, it's a big sidecar."

"Still." Sitting in a sidecar, no matter how cramped or not it was, wasn't Hank's idea of a comfortable journey. Especially not when they were travelling so large a distance as they would have to. She sighed and pushed herself away from the table, walking towards him. "If you don't want to sit in the sidecar, we can switch places. You can sit behind Logan, leaning against him, wrapping your arms around his waist. I'm sure people will start shipping it before long."

Okay, that would be worse than the sidecar, Hank had to give her that. Then again…

"Rather me than you." He wasn't sure why he'd said that, the words just rolled off his tongue before he had a chance to stop them. He felt heat rise to his face, and for once in his life, he was grateful for the fact that, since he was blue, he was unable to blush. She wasn't going to pass on this opportunity to make a suggestive jest, surely. But, much to his relief, for some inconceivable reason, she did.

Ace was quiet, she looked away from him and her breathing turned slightly deeper. Did he mean what she thought he meant with that statement? She couldn't, and shouldn't, count on it. It was probably just her wanton mind reading too much in a simple sentence. Her own emotions could gallop wildly on any word he said that could be interpreted in any way as a hint that he felt the same way she did. Of course, Ace almost immediately suppressed these feelings; they weren't useful to her right now, and they might not ever be.

Noticing her sudden withdrawal, Hank frowned. Was she unwell? She exhibited no symptoms of it, but maybe she was in pain? The severity of her fractured ribs had been relatively low, but that didn't make relapses or bouts of pain impossible. Hesitantly, he stepped closer to her, letting his gaze wander over her face and the general posture of her body, trying with a visual examination to determine if there might be anything wrong.

"Are you quite alright?" He asked, his eyes narrowed and voice tense with concern, both medically and personally. She looked up, suddenly noticing that he had soundlessly moved closer, and finding that it distracted her much, much more than she thought was optimal. Her heartbeat began to race slightly, and she fought the urge to lean closer with every fibre in her hunter's body.

"I'm quite fine, thanks. Just… Thinking about where the bastards might be nesting." She managed an awkward smile, and Hank, catching her drift, stepped away, though he, too, had been distracted by the almost magnetic chemistry that had suddenly appeared between them. "And did you think of any specific places, then?" He asked, trying to make the awkward mood that had settled in the room dissipate. She shrugged. "A few, I know where to start, that's for sure."

"Right, why don't you mark them on the map and I'll just… Check the size of that sidecar. Just to be sure." He slowly backed away a few steps, then turned and headed for the door. Just as he was about to step across the threshold, he heard her voice behind him.

"Hey, Hank, you'll fit. Don't worry, you're not that fat."

"Thank you, Ace. It is such a relief to know that you think so." His pitch-black irony was what finally lifted the mood, and he heard her chuckle as he walked through the door.


	12. The first wave

(Another chapter at last. The story will be moved to Archive of our own from now on, due to the easier interface and options. I'll leave the story here on , but it will not be updated. Only the AO3 story will be updated. The link is as follows: /works/4863314/chapters/11145815 thank you for reading my story!)

If there was one thing Ace hadn't foreseen, it was how easily she slipped back into her old habits. The moment they arrived at the motel, a cheap one, where the employees could be tipped into ignoring any amount of blue fur, she was back in her role. She'd almost felt for one of her fake credit cards in her pocket, before remembering that Hank had made her throw them all out. They probably wouldn't have worked anyway, at least she didn't have to test it now. Since Logan was more used to this kind of thing, and to shady motels in general, than Hank, he handled the people while Ace parked the bike and Hank stayed hidden.

The room was not small, nor was it overtly large. And it only had one bathroom, which might prove difficult, though Ace didn't really care. There were a lot of things she found herself ignoring, instinctively knowing that they would obstruct the hunt. Such as the worried gazes Hank was sending her. He was concerned for her, this woman before him was a far cry from the Ace he knew, and the sudden shift in mentality seemed far from healthy. Still, she wasn't exactly a pitch perfect example of mental health, and he did his best to subdue his concerns. He couldn't help but feel that he was the odd one out, compared to Logan and Ace. They were both quiet, focused and set with gritty determination. For Logan, of course, that wasn't exactly unusual. But for Ace… Well, it was unusual for the woman he knew. He'd only ever glimpsed this side of her, and all those times he had been unsettled. Somehow, he knew it would get worse before it got better.

When the day was coming to an end, which was no more than an hour or so after their arrival, Ace had covered a whole wall with maps, informative pages and newspaper clippings, as well as pictures so gritty, Hank would've feared for the sanity of most people who saw them. Not the three of them, of course. As sad as it was, they had all seen worse things, much worse, though under different circumstances for Hank.

"We move out tonight, starting from the crypts at the old cemetery and moving in a clockwise pattern through the city's local dens of inequity. If we don't find them tonight, no sweat, but they'll most likely find us tomorrow. Either way…" Her façade suddenly gave way, and she hesitated, looking at them both with hesitant looks and a troubled expression. Something in her eyes told Hank that she was genuinely concerned on their behalves, as well as uncertain about herself. Ace truly was uncertain, maybe she should call off the hunt, tell them to go back. That would be suicide for her, but what if something happened to either of the two men? Even worse, what if the vampires caught one of them, and changed them? She would have to kill a friend, and she hadn't had one of those, not like this, for a very long time. As a hunter, she kept people at a safe distance, friends and partners included. She hadn't had to in this dimension, but now the danger was there, and she was weak in the face of them. Plus, if any of them turned into vampires, she was big time screwed.

"Either way what?" Logan's gruff voice interrupted her line of thoughts. She took a deep breath to steady herself. "Don't get bitten, either of you. And don't drink their blood of let them bleed on you, I don't wanna have to cut your heads off." She turned around, facing the rocky, weapon-laden table to avoid having them see her pained expression. She grasped a handgun and loaded it, then unloaded it and re-checked the bullets before loading it again, mostly just to get her head on straight. "Hank, did you get what I asked for?" She asked, turning around again after stuffing the gun into a holster in her belt. The blue mutant shifted uncomfortably, but drew a small canister from one of his inner pockets. At least it looked small in his hand, but it wasn't so tiny when Ace took it. She nodded, examining it carefully before pressing the button that seemed to be correct. She was rewarded when the canister opened, and she could remove three phials of a red liquid.

"I don't want to think of the strings I had to pull to get that." Hank mumbled, looking at the phials with mild disgust, before he shook his head. Logan looked from one to the other, slightly puzzled. "Are ya gonna tell me what that is, or do I have to guess?" He asked, looking mildly annoyed. Ace smirked, not a comfortable, nice kind of smile, but one that sent shivers down Hank's spine. It was a smile that held crude joy over the impending violence. "This, my clawed friend, is dead man's blood. Blood from the deceased is like poison to vampires, it paralyzes them and renders them incapable of fighting, even of coherent thought." She carefully placed the phials in an inner pocket in her jacket, handing Hank the now closed canister. "Damned handy to have." She said, offering Hank a small, comforting smile. She knew he disliked this, but if he continued acting with the hesitance he did now, she was going to have to restrict him to the motel room. She had told him that she needed decisiveness, and she wasn't going to have anything else from him, whether he liked it or not.

With her jaw set with determination, she handed Hank a stake. "I'm not giving you a gun, figured the diplomat in you would be opposed." She said. Of course, she was not telling the entire truth. She wasn't giving him a gun because she didn't trust him to, in the heat of battle, actually be able to use such a weapon. No doubt he'd have the resolve, but she'd read his files, curtesy of the Professor and a good deal of convincing, and she knew he'd be better with a stake. Much, much better.

"Thank you for your concern." Something about the way he looked at her, slightly indignant, told her that he did not understand her meaning with this gesture. Well, it was better that he was annoyed because he thought she didn't think him decisive in battle, than if he was angry with her knowing exactly how he really worked in battle. Ace had a feeling that his bestial side, the animal, was not something he was particularly proud of.

"As for you, Logan, I'm thinking you can handle the beheading without any help." The slight smirk she got in reply was more than enough to convince her that his answer was very much affirmative. She turned around and picked up a crossbow from the table, tossing the quiver over her shoulder. Then she turned back around, facing them with a deadly gleam in her eyes.

"Well, boys. Let's go hunt some suckers."


End file.
